Eddie Izzard Quotes

It requires a strong mind to bear up against several languages. Some persons have learnt so many, that they have ceased to think in any one.

Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life!

The mind of the polyglot is a very particular thing, and scientists are only beginning to look closely at how acquiring a second language influences learning, behavior and the very structure of the brain itself.

I speak English with my dad and Swedish with my mom; it's quite schizophrenic.

I'm used to shifting languages because my father used to speak to us, to my brother and I, he used to speak in English. He wanted us to be quite fluent in English, especially when he was trying to correct our behavior; he would do that in English.

I use Mandarin, Korean and English on a daily basis and usually only use Cantonese when I'm speaking with my relatives. I don't think it's very difficult for me to switch between each language because I've been doing it for so long.

I so want to be able to speak another language. I love the way my friends who are half Italian and half English break from one language into another without even pausing.

I think in French, but I get angry in Spanish.

People say that the brain is a muscle and that one of the best exercises for any brain is learning another language and to switch from one to another as much as you can. I've found out that when I have trouble regarding any character or any particular scene in English, sometimes I'll switch to Spanish and I'll solve the problem that I've encountered. If I'm working in Spanish and I don't know how to approach certain scenes or certain emotions, or how to say this and that, I just switch to English to try to solve it that way and it works.

It makes sense to me that the polyglot wouldn't know what language he dreamed in.

I was born in Scotland and have lived there all my life. I speak conversational Cantonese with my dad when I'm at home, and very basic Mandarin.

Some words, you know, it's amazing but some words would come only in French, and when I speak French, it would only come in English. And so the adjustment is very difficult sometimes.

I speak French, and I grew up with French, so my English is Franglais.

In my house, we speak Spanglish to the dogs, to the grandchildren, to the kids.

It's funny because I'm so used to acting in English that any time I have these moments where I have to speak Russian, it definitely takes a different part of my brain to pull it off, but it's always nice and fun.

My wife and I have spent most of our lives in France, and we are both pretty well bilingual, my wife more purely than I, since as a little girl she went to school in French Switzerland.

I speak English and Spanish. I write in Spanish; my books are published in English.

I go from English to Spanish, and I feel I have some cool songs.

My parents were both Spanish-speakers and they used to speak to me and my siblings in Spanish and we'd answer them in English.

I read the greens in Spanish, but putt in English.

People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.

Talking in one language and talking in another, I think inevitably, produce two different personalities, as far as I've seen in other people. I assume it does the same for me.

I speak two languages, Body and English.

It is asked of me that I give my first speech in this house in a language [English] other than my mother tongue [French.] …. Even if I knew English as intimately as I knew French, I would still give my first speech in the language of my French Canadian compatriots